Use a post-it to catch drill dust
OK, that’s clever. Similar to the drilling-through-a-coffee-cup trick for ceilings. [via There, I Fixed It]
tips
Make: Projects – Magnetic HVAC return grille mount
The return grille mounting in my new house was very sloppy, with a mixture of Molly bolts, toggle bolts, and bare screws in drywall. The sloppy workmanship annoyed me, and made swapping the filter way more work than it needed to be, so I came up with this easy no-tools fix. It could easily be adapted to most steel maintenance panels.
Make and Mend tricks from Tim Anderson
When I was editing The Best of Instructables, one of my favorite authors in the book was Tim Anderson, who also edits our regular “Heirloom Technology” column in MAKE. Tim has hundreds of Instructables, many of them collections of time-saving, energy-saving, make-do, and kludgey-cool repair tips. Here are some excerpts from his Tips articles related […]
How-To: Restore the color of old Lego bricks
Turns out the yellowing of old ABS plastic is due to degradation of bromine-containing fire retardants which are added to the plastic during manufacture, which release elemental bromine, causing the yellow color. Shining UV light on the gel accelerates the decomposition of the fragile oxygen-oxygen bond in the peroxides it contains, generating reactive hydroxyl radicals which scavenge the free or loosely-bound bromine in the plastic that causes discoloration.
Circuit Skills: Perfboard Prototyping, sponsored by Jameco Electronics
[Note: Jameco is currently offering all the parts I used in this video as a perfboard prototyping kit — just add wire & solder. ] When you think “DIY electronics,” one of the first images that likely comes to mind is of parts and wire soldered to a standard piece of perforated circuit board — […]
Rules for Roboticists
Tips, rules, and rules of thumb for building robots.
How-To: Save a wet cell phone
The folks over at Geek Squad produced this helpful infographic describing a rescue method that might help save your phone if you accidentally dunk it in water.
